Site Overlay

Paris: a different POV

Champ de Mars et la Tour Eiffel

I have photographed in Paris a billion times and some would actually say that I am a Parisian by now (although I don’t think so, as my French is awful at best). So I think it’s time for a different display of how I see some Paris landmarks. Contrary to shots like the one above, most of these were taken using an ultra-wide-angle lens at 11mm and close range, so they won’t look like anything out of a common tourist’s point-and-shoot camera.

Let’s start with the most famous church in town: the Cathédrale Notre Dame de Paris.

Cathédrale Notre Dame de Paris
Portail du Jugement Dernier – Nikon D90, Tokina AT-X Pro 11-16mm f/2.8 DX

Most people will actually do this: stop in front of the main portal and look up. But almost none will take this shot. It gives us an idea of grandeur when we look at it this way, and it makes the cathedral much larger than it actually is.

Continuing inside the cathedral, there are some cool things people don’t usually notice. First, the light. Early mornings and late afternoons will provide excellent sun rays coming through the windows, which is really beautiful to watch if you’re not busy taking pictures of all the other common stuff.

La Pièta (Nicolas Coustou)
La Pièta (Nicolas Coustou) – Nikon D90, Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 55-200mm f/4-5.6G VR

This is the main altar, featuring the famous La Pièta sculpture by Nicolas Coustou. It isn’t open for public access, so I had to use the tele lens to capture it and the light beam coming through the window.

Now let’s move to the Louvre. I’ll start with some external shots of the Pyramid.

La Pyramide du Musée du Louvre
La Pyramide du Musée du Louvre – Nikon D90, Tokina AT-X Pro 11-16mm f/2.8

This is a great use of ultra-wide-angle lenses: creating illusion. In this case, I put it at water level in one of the fountains surrounding the pyramid to create the illusion of a flooded courtyard.

Moving closer, we can get the following image.

Louvre Reflections
La Pyramide du Musée du Louvre – Nikon D90, Tokina AT-X Pro 11-16mm f/2.8 DX

This is a very unusual way of seeing the pyramid. In fact, it looks more like a F-117 Stealth canopy. And when looking from below, we can get a nice abstract:

La pyramide du Musée du Louvre
La Pyramide du Musée du Louvre – Nikon D90, Tokina AT-X Pro 11-16mm f/2.8 DX

While people are going through huge lines and buying their tickets, you can lay flat on the ground and shoot something like this (and get a warning from security). In fact, the best thing for photography inside the Louvre is to look up. There are very interesting details and textures in the ceiling. One of my favorites is the pattern on the ceiling of the Salon Denon at night:

Salon Denon
Salon Denon – Nikon D90, Tokina AT-X Pro 11-16mm f/2.8 DX

If you wish to take photos inside the Louvre at night, go on Thursdays, since it closes by 9 PM.

You can also find interesting stuff in other museums, like a dark knight:

Dark Knight
Dark Knight – Nikon D90, Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 35mm f/1.8G DX

It’s actually one of the items in exhibit at the Musée de l’Armée, located inside the Hôtel National des Invalides. It’s one of the coolest museums in town and it’s worth visiting. I used the 35mm lens and a very wide aperture (f/1.8) to blur out the background, converted to B&W and applied a 80A filter over it.

Looking up with an ultra-wide-angle will always provide some interesting shots, like this one of the Tour Montparnasse, which looks more like a guitar neck:

Up towards the sky
Tour Montparnasse – Nikon D90, Tokina AT-X Pro 11-16mm f/2.8 DX

Or this one of the Arc de Triomphe de l’Étoile:

Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile
Arc de Triomphe de l’Étoile – Nikon D90, Tokina AT-X Pro 11-16mm f/2.8 DX

I could go on and on and bore you to death with these, but I’ll stop here. Bottom line is that now that I have thousands of shots from common point-of-views, I’m trying to look at different angles. You can follow my work on Flickr and check those out.

by




Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.